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From: Vinzent 'Gadget' Hoefler <nntp-2004-02@t-domaingrabbing.de>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: In-Out Parameters for functions
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 15:34:14 +0100
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Date: 2004-02-25T15:34:14+01:00
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Hyman Rosen wrote:

>David Starner wrote:
>> I think part of it is language philosophy.
>
>What philosophy requires the retention of a feature
>that offers no benefits and can be removed without
>affecting legal programs?

The philosophy that the semantics of a program should be the same, no
matter if you choose to write "f :=3D a + b;" or "f =3D b + a;" instead.
With that in mind, it is easier to make someone aware of better
writing functions *without* side-effects, which is supposed to be a
good thing. :-)

BTW, AFAICS and JFTR: C and C++ don't specify evaluation either (I
don't know if Java does fix it), except when sequence points are
involved. The only difference is that unfortunately all Boolean
operations happen to be sequence points here.


Vinzent.